How to Make a Felt Lion Puppet

Bring your child's story time to life with a felt puppet.

Fashion a hand-held felt puppet after the king of the jungle to add to your menagerie of wild animal performers. The soft felt material used for the puppet is gentle on delicate skin, and the design features no sharp edges, making it an ideal puppet for children. Bring the lion puppet to life in a home performance of the children’s classic book, “The Wizard of Oz.” Or use the puppet for a spur-of-the-moment assistant during mealtime when your child is unwilling to eat his vegetables.

Things You'll Need

• Tan felt
• Scissors
• Embroidery needle
• Tan embroidery floss
• Brown felt
• Hot glue gun
• 2 large googly eyes

Instructions

1. Place one of your hands in the center of a sheet of tan felt. Draw around the hand as if you are making a mitten, but you don’t need to outline each finger. Add a second thumb to the other side of the hand so that if you fold the mitten shape in half, the thumbs will be symmetrical.

2. Cut the two-thumbed mitten shape out. Use the cut-out mitten as a template for tracing a second mitten on another sheet of tan felt. Cut out the second mitten. Stack them together, and trim the edges as needed so they are identical.

3. Sew around the finger portion of the felt mittens with an embroidery needle and tan embroidery floss, and use a 1/2-inch seam and a running stitch. Leave the straight edge at the base of the mittens unsewn so you can insert your hand in the puppet. Turn the tan felt inside-out so the seams are on the inside.

4. Cut one 6-inch circle from a sheet of tan felt and one 7-inch circle using brown felt. Add a fringed edge around each of the circles by making 1-inch cuts spaced 1/4 inch apart. Stack the circles so the brown circle is centered on the back side of the tan circle. Sew the circles together using a 1 1/2-inch seam from the ends of the fringe. Leave the fringed edges free for the lion’s mane.

5. Cut a 1-inch triangle out of a sheet of brown felt. Place the triangle so one side of the triangle is positioned horizontally across the center of the tan felt circle. Adhere the brown triangle to the tan circle using hot glue to form the lion’s nose.

6. Affix two large googly eyes using hot glue above the lion’s nose. Position the lion’s face on the flat surface at the top of the tan mitten; each of the thumbs is the lion’s arm. Bond the lion’s face to the mitten using hot glue. Then, insert one of your hands into the mitten to operate the puppet.